Morris falsely suggested McCain is no different from Obama in percentage of time he votes with Bush
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SUMMARY: On The O'Reilly Factor, Dick Morris asserted that while Democrats say "things are terrible, Bush is awful, and McCain is more of same," "[t]hat statistic that 90 percent of the time they vote together? Ninety percent of the votes in the Senate are unanimous. Bush, Obama, and McCain probably vote together 90 percent of the time on resolutions congratulating the New York Giants and stuff." In fact, Congressional Quarterly has reported that Sen. John McCain has voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time, while Sen. Barack Obama has voted with Bush 40 percent of the time.
During the September 1 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News contributor and columnist Dick Morris asserted that while Democrats say "things are terrible, [President] Bush is awful, and [Sen. John] McCain is more of same," "[t]hat statistic that 90 percent of the time they vote together? Ninety percent of the votes in the Senate are unanimous. Bush, [Sen. Barack] Obama, and McCain probably vote together 90 percent of the time on resolutions congratulating the New York Giants and stuff." While McCain has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time over the seven-and-a-half years of Bush's presidency, according to a presidential support study by the nonpartisan publication Congressional Quarterly that McCain himself has cited, CQ found that Obama has voted with Bush 40 percent of the time since becoming a U.S. senator in 2005.
CQ also found that McCain was the Bush administration's most reliable vote in 2007. The publication reported in a January 13 article (accessed in the Nexis news database): "Repeated votes on immigration and the Iraq War also helped elevate Republican John McCain of Arizona, one of Bush's chief adversaries in the Senate in 2005, to be one of his biggest supporters in 2007. McCain's 95 percent support score for last year was the highest in the chamber."
CQ describes its process for determining presidential support as follows:
Presidential Support: This analysis uses all votes where the editors of Congressional Quarterly determined that President Bush had taken a clear position prior to the vote. There were 443 such votes in the House during the period (9 percent of the total) and 564 such votes in the Senate (22 percent).
On average, House Republicans supported Bush on 80 percent of such votes and Democrats supported the president on just 20 percent. In the Senate, where votes on confirmations tend to elevate presidential support scores, Republicans voted with Bush 88 percent of the time, and Democrats gave him their support on 51 percent of the relevant votes.
From the September 1 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
BILL O'REILLY (host): All right, last question for you: Do you agree with me that the two issues that McCain should hammer this week are national security-war on terror --
MORRIS: Yep.
O'REILLY: -- and the economy-gas prices?
MORRIS: Yeah.
O'REILLY: Really, that's where this thing is going to be won or lost.
MORRIS: That should be the substance of it, Bill, but the message should be, "I am no George Bush." The message should be to take each of those issues and show how he would be different from Bush. Because the minute you do that, McCain becomes an acceptable alternative to Obama.
The Democratic convention said things are terrible, Bush is awful, and McCain is more of same. That last phrase is the one you have to lop off, and if do you that, the Democrats don't have a comeback.
And after all, ask anybody in politics, and they'll tell you of the 50 U.S. senators, McCain is the least like Bush. That statistic that 90 percent of the time they vote together? Ninety percent of the votes in the Senate are unanimous. Bush, Obama, and McCain probably vote together 90 percent of the time on resolutions --
O'REILLY: OK.
MORRIS: -- congratulating the New York Giants and stuff.
O'REILLY: All right, Dick.
MORRIS: Thank you.
O'REILLY: We'll see you out here tomorrow as Morris heads west.
I can forgive Morris' goofy calculations. He doesn't even know how many Senators there are.
It's really irrelevant whether McCain voted with Bush or not, from where I sit they both share the same opinions on policy and issues, foreign and domestic....he isn't anti-Bush, despite Morris' twisting and spinning.
That is where people should make up their minds.
Sorry, Gov. all of the tipster positions are filled. One of us has to die before you can be appointed.
Back on topic, why does Obama refuse to congratulate the NY Giants? He sure doesn't seem very American.
Senator Obama refuses to congratulate the Super Bowl champions for the same reason many of us won't.
It's because they're the New Jersey Giants.
We're Americans here in NJ too.
Neal Boortz tried to add in the funny with this:
That cartoon is stupid for two reasons:
1. It takes an intentionally naive view of lawmaking with the "the president does not vote" line.
2. It is incredibly disingenuous in that McCain has a worse attendance record than Obama in the Senate.
Worst of all, it's not funny.
That sums up right-wing humor - not factual AND not funny. You can get away with one of them, but not both.
And he'll most likely have his VP do anything to get him elected
It would get the EIB Seal of Approval, that's for sure...
I think it was the Col, but I remember someone here making the same statement! This is too ironic!
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Just more idiotic interpretations of a U.S. Senator's voting record: instead of "ratings" and "rankings", now it's all about "percentages"...
Insult us a little more why don't you.
Every vote cast by every U.S. Senator, is cast on a particular matter or issue: talk about the issues, and not about some stupid "ranking" or any idiotic senseless "percentage"...
Talk about IRAQ.
Aren't pundits and commentators like Morris required to be consistent with their own prior statements and views?
If Morris likes Bush, and he likes McCain, and he dislikes Obama, then he should be proud of the fact that McCain supports Bush, and he should be using Obama's opposition to Bush as an anti-Obama campaign issue.
The fact that even tools like Morris won't defend Bush tells you how unpopular he is. Is anyone going to hold Morris to his own prior statements?
Obama most likely would have a record of voting w/ Bush around 60-80% of the time, however he did not vote on most unanimous issues. Take a look at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/ and notice how, although he may have voted for something one day, he refused to vote on many other issues which were unanimous votes.
I believe this is no accident, and that in order to keep his agreement with Bush % down, he purposely refused to vote on issues in which he would come in agreement with Bush. I find it very insulting to make a claim about how his opponent votes when he himself refuses to vote on issues which will align him w/ the president.